Giveaway Wednesday!
Hooray! It's Songbird Paperie's very first Giveaway Wednesday! Once a month I will be hosting a giveaway here on the blog and I am SO excited to present this huge giveaway celebrating the coming of spring, which is NEXT WEEK! Woooo!
Here is what is included in this fabulous Spring Forward giveaway:
- One tabletop-sized chalkboard hand lettered by Songbird Paperie with your quote of choice, or choose the quote that is displayed in the photo! (Thanks to one of my favorite bands, Ghost Ship, for writing an amazing song, where this lyric is from!)
- One bubbly thank you card with a mint envelope
- One set of 5 personalized stationery cards and envelopes, with your choice of gold (shown) or sunshine yellow envelopes (pinwheel not included)
- One springy happy birthday card with a coral envelope
Here are the rules in order to qualify for a chance to win these lovely items!
- Must be a resident of USA
- Like Songbird Paperie on Facebook
- Follow Songbird Paperie on Instagram
- Comment here on this blog post, telling me your favorite thing about springtime!
Easy peasy, right?! I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone enjoys about springtime, one of my favorite times of the year. Even if I hear from just five of you wonderful people, I'll consider this a success! (Gotta start with small goals when it's your first giveaway!)
Deadline for this giveaway is guess when? SPRING EQUINOX! Friday, March 20th, at 9PM PDT.
I will contact the winner on Monday, March 23rd to get your name, giveaway details, and shipping address!
Ready, set, GO!
xoxo,
Rosie
The Citrus Countryside: Weddings in Woodinville 2015 (And you should totally check me out on Style Me Pretty's Little Black Book!)
Weddings weddings weddings! My life is all about weddings these days and I LOVE IT! I mean, don't get me wrong, I know it's quite the stressful task in planning your dream wedding, but when you're on the other side, somehow the magic multiplies over and over again, and it's fantastic!
OH! YEAH! That other part of the blog title. EXCITING NEWS! Earlier this year I got chosen to be in Style Me Pretty's Little Black Book! //insert happy dance// Late last night my page got posted and I added some photos to my gallery (more to come soon) and WOOHOO! I'm there!!! I'm listed for Calligraphy, which is TOTALLY amazing because I could seriously calligraphy (yes I'm using it as a verb) all day long and write on chalkboards all day long! Yay!!!!!
Back to weddings! So, Weddings in Woodinville was this past January and it was so much fun! Quick explanation: There are wedding shows (i.e., in a convention center) and there are wedding tours (i.e., Weddings in Woodinville!). These tours have different venues and the lucky guests get shuttled around and visit with every single wedding vendor they would need for their special day! There are themes and food and invites and everything and it is amazingly inspiring! Check out some of my favorite photos from Woodinville Whiskey Co., my venue...
Of course. A chalkboard. :o) A gilded one at that!
Our welcome table! If you can't tell by now, our theme was "The Citrus Countryside". Yummy and so sweet! Miss Holly Patton of Perfectly Posh Events, our talented wedding planner, came up with this GORGEOUS theme!
The "ceremony programs" for the event resembled citrus-flavored Popsicles! So cute, right?! I loved making these and thank you to all my lovely lady friends who helped me assemble all 300 of them!
Everything paper and lettered was by Songbird Paperie! So, if you see something you like, let me know! :o)
Don't these drinks sound AMAZING?! Yeah I think so too!
This was one of my favorite pieces -- the citrus chandelier! One of my best buds, Rachel of Butter & Bloom, did it! She's an amazing florist!
This was quite possibly my most favorite invitation design in the history of invitation design! The colors and the fonts are so so so happy!!
Heehee -- there's me! I didn't know the picture was being taken at the time, so my little face is a little serious.
A macaron tower!!!! Gosh I wanted to eat those babies so bad... dang nut allergies! Thanks Kara (from The Sweet Side) for making such beautifully tantalizing treats!
Ummmm how adorbs is this place card and favor combo?! The place card is a parchment-wrapped clementine with a custom die-cut leaf and the guests's name written in shimmery gold calligraphy! The favor is a teeny jar of lemon-orange marmalade tied with rustic twine and a custom die-cut lemon and "love is sweet" written in shimmery gold calligraphy!
Flowers!!! And seriously, Kimberly from Alante Photography is so talented!!!
This duo was so good!!! She is such a gifted violinist and he is such a smooth guitar player! I loved listening to these play all day, AND it inspired me to start practicing violin more often!
What a lovely day this was! I hope you are inspired as much as I was on this day! This would make for such a fun spring or summer wedding, whether it be at a winery, a lodge, or even a whiskey distillery. :o)
xoxo,
Rosie
// Vendors Featured //
Wedding Planner: Perfectly Posh Events
Rentals: ABC Special Event Rentals by CORT
Photography: Alante Photography
Wine: Alexandria Nicole Cellars
Linens: BBJ Linens
Transportation: Butler Seattle-Valet, Transportation & Tours Specialists
Flowers: Butter & Bloom
Lighting: GreenLight Event Design
Music: Harold Belskus
Catering: The Hollywood Tavern
Tables: Seattle Farm Tables
Stationery: Songbird Paperie
Cake and Treats: The Sweet Side
Vintage Rentals: Vintage Ambiance
How Did I Get Here?!
Pictured: Me in my wedding dress on my wedding day! It's sort of the first day Songbird Paperie started, but I didn't know at the time! :o)
I get this question asked quite a bit: "How did you end up doing design/stationery/calligraphy/the stuff that you do?" I get SO excited when people ask that because my answer is unexpected, entertaining (to me at least!), and so much fun to tell! And I'd love to tell you too, because I know you're absolutely DYING to know. (Haha or not. That's okay too. Maybe. Just pretend for me, okay? Gratzi!)
Graphic design, stationery, and insanely perfect handwriting are three things that I have loved since I was little girl. I grew up in tech central (Silicon Valley, woot woot!) with a Dad in tech, so he always brought me home design software galore and other fun computer software to try out (like... one of the first first-person shooter computer games that was so fun to play... I totally look the type, right?!). So I'm self-taught in graphic design. I also loved to make cards and place cards, make my own fonts, and even practice writing with my non-dominant hand to perfect my lefty handwriting. You think after all those years doing those fun things, I'd go on to art school and get some sort of fine arts degree, right?
WRONG! I went to USC (Fight on, Trojans!) and got a degree in Neuroscience. Seriously. Neuroscience.
What I forgot to mention about my childhood is that in addition to the artsy side of life, I thoroughly enjoyed the science of life - weather, physiology, medicine, biology, and so on, which inspired me to want to be a pediatrician from the ripe old age of seven years young. (In addition to the next Mariah Carey. Renaissance woman!) Thus my pursuit of the world of neurons, pathways, and gray & white matter.
After realizing that I actually would not enjoy medical school (the cut-throat and unattractively over-competitiveness of my fellow pre-med students turned me off), I switched gears and made a beeline to a pre-physical therapy track. I enjoyed kinesiology, rehabilitation and physical fitness, so that was a no-brainier. What was a brain-scratcher, however, was the fact that even with getting the neuro degree, working as a physical therapy aide for 6 years, and getting great recommendations, after THREE (3!!!) consecutive years of applying to physical therapy school, I. Did. Not. Get. In.
Wouldn't that make you kind of upset ever so slightly? Yeah, I would have thought so for me too. But... by the time the third year of skinny envelopes filling my mailbox rolled around, I wasn't upset.
Quick BTW: I'm new at this blog thing. But it's exciting so I want to be so open and honest as I can -- or else, how can you be a good writer?
So, the not being upset: weird, right? Yeah I thought so too. So I prayed to God about it. Turns out, I had never prayed to God before about my career. Never. Ever. Even when I pray about everything else. So I said okay, God, then, I give this career business to you. Please help me figure this out! And so, because he's faithful, he did. And wow what a difference it made!
It turned out that the medical world was so far from God's plan for me. And oh did I try to make it my plan. I wanted the title, the salary, and all the recognition. (I was such a turd!) But I failed on my own. Enter God and BAM! New direction that was HIS direction, a direction that was his plan all along - be a graphic designer, calligrapher, stationer, and be a good one of those. I became happier, more joyful, more confident, and more reliant on God than ever before, which is really good! And I saw success and true joy in obedience when everywhere else I saw failure and misery.
Flowers make everything pretty! Image via Glitter Guide.
Do I regret my time at USC and studying neuroscience? Nope. Not a single day of it. God chooses to use our good and bad choices for his and our good, teaching us so much about his grace and mercy. My time at USC was the best time of my life (Fight on Trojan Marching Band!) and I met my wonderful husband. I still recreationally enjoy the world of neuro, and I was able to understand a scary neurological diagnosis and partially unsuccessful and damaging operation my mother went through during my college years, so I know that everything was worth it.
But I love design so much more. It's where I'm supposed to be and I love every minute of it. Thanks for hanging in there to read my story! I look forward to sharing with you tomorrow's blog, featuring some fun wedding inspiration photos from this year's Weddings in Woodinville! See you tomorrow!
xoxo,
Rosie
Art Deco Wedding Paperie
It's been about a month since the Northlake Wedding & Events Show, and I'm excited to announce that I just received the fabulous pictures from my venue! The photographers were amazing and are from Seattle Flashing Lights Photography.
The theme for our venue, Hotel Deca, was "Rendez-vous a Paris". Think Roaring Twenties meets Moulin Rouge meets Gatsby and Art Deco, all rolled into one big wedding! Tons of gold and black with pops of red for added drama.
I had the pleasure of doing all of the paper goods for my venue -- menus, place cards, escort cards (yup, we did both!), "programs" (ceremony programs that were actually programs with our venue's vendor details), buffet dish labels, invite suite... I think that was it!
Check out that gold flatware -- gorgeous, right?! It makes me want to have a set of my own! Anyway, everything looked gorgeous against the black tablecloth. The place cards were held up by teensy tiny gold succulents. So cuuuuuuute! And of course, I did gold calligraphy for the place cards, AND matching gold embossed stamp with a very art deco-y design.
Side note: How GORGEOUS is this cake done by Stone Layne Baked Specialties? This girl is majorly talented! Her level of detail was pretty darn awesome. One more:
So lovely! Okay, back to paper and ink.
I used an enclosure (Love love LOVE enclosures. They're so dramatic without being all teenager-y) with a gold glittery band and a fine paper square fastener. It sort of reminds me of an obi on a kimono... very beautiful!
And I used my favorite layout -- font heavy, pretty drastically different fonts that came together beautifully!
Oh hey! There's my table!! I had a lot on it... next time I think I need to have some additional shelving behind me to display all of the paper goodies!
Well that was a fun day! I look forward to maybe doing this again next year! But just around the corner, I will be at another wedding show/tour! This time it will be Weddings in Woodinville and I am so STOKED! January 25th, 2015, here I come!
Here is the list of participating vendors from my venue:
Planner: Maris Events
Caterer: EatDrink Catering
Photographer & Photo Booth: Seattle Flashing Lights
DJ: Magnolia Rhapsody
Rentals: Abbey Party Rentals
Florist: Althauser Design
Stationery: Songbird Paperie
Dessert: Stone Layne Baked Specialities
Officiant: The Wedding Gentleman
Makeup: Younique Products
Live Event Painting: Lynette Marquis, Artist
xoxo,
Rosie
Wedding Wednesday: Northlake Wedding & Events Tour!
Hip hip hooray! It's Wedding Show Season! It's that lovely time of year when the traditional wedding season winds down, and the inspiration season sets in, with all sorts of shows, inspiration shoots and blogs (mmm that sort of happens year round but let's just throw that in for good measure), and so much more preparation for the next wedding season!
I am STOKED to be a part of my very first show this coming Sunday. It's the Northlake Wedding & Events Tour, and it's going to be awesome. Picture this: seven venues, seven themes, seven groups of wedding/event vendors to meet and greet (from planners to stationery to floral and more), mockup ceremonies and receptions, swag bags, sweet treats, delicious beverages, music, and transportation to all the venues!
I will be at the oh-so-lovely Hotel Deca, and the theme is going to be so much fun! I'll give you a little hint... there will be some gold and it is going to be so decadent! Come visit me -- tickets are ONLY $20. And if you buy TWO tickets, they're only $30. So come with a friend or your fiance or your best friend or your business partner or your mom!
Sneak peak -- there will be beautiful gold things at Hotel Deca!
So yes, buy your tickets today (prices go up at the door), and be at the Center for Urban Horticulture between 10:30am-12:00pm on Sunday for check-in and to drop off your batmobile (I watched Batman Begins with Mr. Architect last night, so I've got Bruce Wayne on the brain!), and join the tour!
Here are useful links:
To purchase tickets: www.northlakewedding.com/tickets.html
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Northlake-Wedding-Events-Tour/227640143980503
Instagram: @northlakewed, #northlakewed
Twitter: @northlakewed
Looking forward to seeing your lovely faces on Sunday!
xoxo,
Rosie